3
HAVE YOU CONSIDERED A GEORGIA O’KEEFFE FOR YOUR UNICORN DICK?
Carter
There’s nothing like having free therapy living next door.
The next morning, I’m emptying the dishwasher and getting my neighbor Monroe up to speed on the Rachel situation.
He’s parked on a stool at the kitchen counter, listening as he savors one of my best-ever cortados, courtesy of this brand-new Slayer single boiler I am obsessed with.
“And then she sent me a plant,” I say, finishing the story.
“Let me rewind to my favorite bit. You actually got her a unicorn mug?”
I shoot him a duh stare as I stack plates in the open cupboard. “Was that not clear, doc?”
With a chuckle, he shakes his head. “I think what’s quite clear is you were thinking with your dick.”
“Have a little sympathy here. It’s that thing where you care what happens to other people.”
“Thanks. I’m in short supply lately.”
“I’ve noticed,” I say.
He waggles his cup at me. “But I will compliment you on this drink. It’s like sex in coffee form.”
“Right?” I say, proud of my newly acquired espresso skills. Taught myself. It’s like a puzzle, making coffee that tastes as good as coming. “I’m a fucking rock star barista.”
“We need to work on your confidence, Carter,” he says, then takes a drink as my phone’s alarm blinks with a notification—Do NOT forget you’re playing golf with your agent tomorrow morning, you time lord.
I groan. I don’t want to deal with that one. I do like golf, but I also know I need to talk to my agent about Date Night, one of my sponsors that I owe some appearances to. I’ve been putting off that convo as long as I can.
I silence the alarm, then turn back to Monroe. “So? What do I do?”
Monroe fixes me with a serious stare. “You want to know how to get past the incident,” he says, sketching air quotes.
“Yes,” I say emphatically. “Her party is tonight. I need to be there as her friend. Her longtime buddy. Not the pervy bastard whose mind is elsewhere. Ever since it happened, I’m like—” I gesture to my head, then make a scrambling gesture. “I don’t need more things going haywire upstairs.”
He nods, with real sympathy this time. “I understand,” he says, then takes a very psychologist-like weighty pause. “But you may want to consider if you’ve got some subliminal things going on with you…and, well, her.”
I scrunch my brow. “Translation please, Freud.”
“When I said you were thinking with your dick, I meant it. You have dick on your mind.” He takes a beat, then in his classic, droll style, he adds, “You got her a unicorn, man.”
He makes a rolling gesture, waiting for me to connect the dots. When I do two seconds later, I drop my head on the counter and bang it a few times. “A unicorn has a dick on its head,” I mutter.
When I raise my face, Monroe is slow-clapping. Asshole. “Good job, buddy,” he says. “But let’s not forget the symbolism of the pink bag either. You put the unicorn mug in the pink bag.”
“Pink is innocent, Jung,” I protest, but it dies on my tongue. He’s so right. How did I miss it? “Is giving a woman a unicorn in a pink bag some new dating lingo for you want to bone her? I do not want to learn any new dating codes,” I say, then sigh heavily.
He raises his empty cup in anti-dating solidarity. Dude’s been burned too. As for me, I still have the tire tracks on my back from Quinn’s peel-out-of-town-with-the-engagement-ring act a year ago. “I hear ya.”
I shove thoughts of my ex and the ax she wielded to my heart aside, flashing him a cocky grin. “Though, to be fair, I do have a unicorn dick.”
Monroe stares blankly at me, like he’s not even going to dignify that with a response. Fair enough. “Let’s rewind to thirty seconds ago, please. The part about your brain going haywire.”
That’s the real issue. Even with the eight-mile run last night, even with the new plant—that reminds me, I need to water Jane, so I grab a water bottle and fill it—I’m still thinking about Rachel in new ways.
Wildly inappropriate ways.
I had a dirty dream about her last night, and I don’t need a dating code or a shrink friend to decipher it. I put her on her hands and knees on a raft in a stormy sea. I don’t think the dream means I want to visit a beach with her so much as show her the motion of the ocean. I woke up far too hot and bothered for a workday. “Seriously, how do I get these thoughts out of my head? Do I have OCD now too?”
From someone else, that might sound like a joke. But I mean it genuinely. It’s a legit worry, given what I deal with every damn day.
Monroe knows where I’m coming from, and he must read the seriousness in my tone, because his shifts too. This is the voice he reserves for patients. “I’m not your therapist,” he says, giving me his familiar caveat, “and I can’t diagnose you, but I don’t think you do. I do, however, think there are encounters in our lives that we can fixate on. That anyone can fixate on, regardless of brain chemistry. Like, when a parent walks in on a teenager masturbating.”
I shudder. “It’s taken me years to get over that day.”
“That’s my point.”
I set the water bottle down on the counter, then I return to the dishwasher, grabbing the utensil basket. “All right. I’m going to go work out some more,” I say as I snag the forks and set them in a drawer. “Round up a few of the guys for some extra practice. Find a new hobby. Take up kayaking. I bet my contract permits that. Maybe woodworking. I already aced espresso-making. So I need something new anyway.”
“Relax, Carter. The best thing you can do in these situations is to acknowledge them. You did that already with Rachel. It defuses the awkwardness. If it’s still weighing on you tonight at her party, just make a joke, have a laugh, then move on for her sake. She’s probably way more embarrassed than you are. And then, focus on all the reasons you like being friends with her.”
That’s brilliant. I smack the counter like I’m nailing an answer on a quiz show. “She was my jigsaw puzzle club partner in high school,” I point out excitedly. “We could start a jigsaw puzzle club again. That’ll be friendship vibes for sure.”
“Great. Maybe get her a puzzle before the party,” he says, then checks his watch. “My first client will be here soon. I need to go dispense paid wisdom.”
I point at the gleaming silver espresso machine. “Oh, I paid for that wisdom.”
“True,” he says with a smirk, then pushes back from the stool, standing. “But here’s some free advice for you. Try a Georgia O’Keeffe puzzle.”
I make a mental note as I put the spoons away. “New puzzle brand?”
“Yes, Carter. I keep up on puzzle brands,” he says dryly. Then he leaves for his office in the townhome next to mine.
I swivel away from the open drawer. I’ll finish putting these dishes away in twenty seconds. Just need to know more about this puzzle maker. Grabbing my phone from the counter, I google Georgia O’Keeffe.